Founding members: Joe Lake, Michael Garrad, Dr Vi Woodhouse, Judy Brumby-Lake, June Hitchcock; other members: Dr Mary Kille, Loretta Gaul, Neil McLaren, Peter Stratford.
Michael Garrad is a former editor, now retired of The Advocate newspaper and also the editor of the gazette. He was born in England but has spent most of his life in Tasmania. Joe Lake originally came to Australia from Austria in 1960 and moved with Judy to Tasmania in 1988. He is the publisher of the gazette and creator of self-help booklets. Vi Woodhouse is a retired M.D. and founder-member. Judy Brumby-Lake is the wife of Joe Lake. Judy was born in Tasmania. June has been with the society since its inception. Mary Kille is a retired M.D. and lives near Table Cape. She has been with the society some years. Loretta Gaul is an active contributor, so is Neil. Peter Stratford joined lately. The Europa Poetry Gazette is published by lovers of poetry and is distributed for free in the north of Tasmania.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
No 67 Europa Poets' Gazette November 2009
Sonnet 24
I floated, skipped and danced among the throng,
Like a child’s anticipation of a joy;
Righting all around me that was wrong
And touching the world as if it were a toy.
Come see me walk on water through the night,
Then float across the universe on stars
And pluck the flowers of the sun’s delight
To hear the songs of paper-blue guitars
Where highs and lows touch as a lover’s tease
And Earth is just a fluffy ball of foam
Among the blues of other stars’ release,
The secret breathing of the dying stone.
Come to my ship and let us sail away
Towards that neverland where we shall play.
© Joe Lake
New Day
The sky spreads wide across farewells,
And the sun smiles,
No matter where the end hides,
Rain dances on distant pastures
against renewing, banked clouds,
Birds, joyous, sing
above mountain ocean waves,
Chorus resonating in the long still,
And air is sweet and calm, and angry,
Brushing atop trees in all lands;
The gap is close and a sparkle
breaches every new day.
© Michael Garrad October 2009
I floated, skipped and danced among the throng,
Like a child’s anticipation of a joy;
Righting all around me that was wrong
And touching the world as if it were a toy.
Come see me walk on water through the night,
Then float across the universe on stars
And pluck the flowers of the sun’s delight
To hear the songs of paper-blue guitars
Where highs and lows touch as a lover’s tease
And Earth is just a fluffy ball of foam
Among the blues of other stars’ release,
The secret breathing of the dying stone.
Come to my ship and let us sail away
Towards that neverland where we shall play.
© Joe Lake
New Day
The sky spreads wide across farewells,
And the sun smiles,
No matter where the end hides,
Rain dances on distant pastures
against renewing, banked clouds,
Birds, joyous, sing
above mountain ocean waves,
Chorus resonating in the long still,
And air is sweet and calm, and angry,
Brushing atop trees in all lands;
The gap is close and a sparkle
breaches every new day.
© Michael Garrad October 2009
No 67 Europa Poets' Gazette November 2009
The Slam is over for now. I’m not going to tell you who won. Guess.
We also had the Burnie Shines Europa Poets’ Gold Pot and that was won by a deserved person.
Christmas is my favourite time of the year as I like singing and playing my little organ to the tune of Silent Night.
No inkling of Global Warming in Burnie last winter and we can only take the scientists’ word for the fact that it will get better.
I did manage in a kind of way to get us onto Google’s Blog. You’ll have to type into the Google box, “Europa Poets’ Gazette”
and that should bring you a moment’s joy or you can expose yourself by telling us how bad it all is and that Shakespeare
could do better, or was that T.S. Eliot? Never mind. Write some yourself. It will open your mind to new vistas and horizons.
You will find that after a time, the brain will write your poetry for you and you’ll think that God did it.
Sonnet Undetermined
Deterministically, life is set
As genes and software-instinct wail for me
Where childhood horrors or my social debt
Drives unrelentingly life’s goal and key.
This rule, of course, means that I cannot change
The book of life as written at my birth
And I can only wriggle in its range
As nothing alters my life’s drift and curse.
But I pretend that I can make a choice,
That I can find the good rather than bad
If I can listen to my conscience’s voice,
Ignoring all projections that are mad.
By precedent we do what we must do
As we reject conclusions that are new.
© Joe Lake
We also had the Burnie Shines Europa Poets’ Gold Pot and that was won by a deserved person.
Christmas is my favourite time of the year as I like singing and playing my little organ to the tune of Silent Night.
No inkling of Global Warming in Burnie last winter and we can only take the scientists’ word for the fact that it will get better.
I did manage in a kind of way to get us onto Google’s Blog. You’ll have to type into the Google box, “Europa Poets’ Gazette”
and that should bring you a moment’s joy or you can expose yourself by telling us how bad it all is and that Shakespeare
could do better, or was that T.S. Eliot? Never mind. Write some yourself. It will open your mind to new vistas and horizons.
You will find that after a time, the brain will write your poetry for you and you’ll think that God did it.
Sonnet Undetermined
Deterministically, life is set
As genes and software-instinct wail for me
Where childhood horrors or my social debt
Drives unrelentingly life’s goal and key.
This rule, of course, means that I cannot change
The book of life as written at my birth
And I can only wriggle in its range
As nothing alters my life’s drift and curse.
But I pretend that I can make a choice,
That I can find the good rather than bad
If I can listen to my conscience’s voice,
Ignoring all projections that are mad.
By precedent we do what we must do
As we reject conclusions that are new.
© Joe Lake
No. 67 Europa Poets' Gazette, November 2009
Beyond Hunger
Beyond the hunger
it waits,
In the twilight,
Still,
Watching
as leaves rest,
Even the breeze
has vanished,
Silent stillness,
Ravenous in this
half light;
It can wait
as long as the eye blinks,
As long as the
longest day,
Vigilant,
With voracious appetite,
It listens to the rain
and counts every drop,
Seeks the weak
in a second of
crying passion,
And then pounces
when defence
is impossible.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
This Face
The sun cuts deep,
And canopy green submits
to shadow, stark,
Shaped by light and breeze,
Hollows of black are eyes,
Nose sharp in profile,
Mouth frozen in grin and grimace,
Trees and bush are this face
Mood dark, stare set,
A human image no more
than prism trick,
Silent, watchful,
Eager to play with broken mind,
Gone with the night,
Or was that the moon dancing?
Pray that slumber is peace,
When black has swallowed this shape,
By dawn, it will glare again,
As clouds clutter around this sun,
Fear the mask in green
For it moves in frightful pattern
with every whimsical element
that is the essence of tireless death.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
Beyond the hunger
it waits,
In the twilight,
Still,
Watching
as leaves rest,
Even the breeze
has vanished,
Silent stillness,
Ravenous in this
half light;
It can wait
as long as the eye blinks,
As long as the
longest day,
Vigilant,
With voracious appetite,
It listens to the rain
and counts every drop,
Seeks the weak
in a second of
crying passion,
And then pounces
when defence
is impossible.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
This Face
The sun cuts deep,
And canopy green submits
to shadow, stark,
Shaped by light and breeze,
Hollows of black are eyes,
Nose sharp in profile,
Mouth frozen in grin and grimace,
Trees and bush are this face
Mood dark, stare set,
A human image no more
than prism trick,
Silent, watchful,
Eager to play with broken mind,
Gone with the night,
Or was that the moon dancing?
Pray that slumber is peace,
When black has swallowed this shape,
By dawn, it will glare again,
As clouds clutter around this sun,
Fear the mask in green
For it moves in frightful pattern
with every whimsical element
that is the essence of tireless death.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Cameron Hindrum
At Storys Creek
Except for the ghosts of houses, an abandoned town
has no memory.
The footprints of man and building dissolve
into gathering ground.
An abandoned river with banks of rust
carries poison-weighted water
away from the rain off the distant bluff.
Rain is merciful, gentle here, no weeping
for open scars or lost fortunes.
The pillagers are gone, having reaped
what they could, leaving us to sow
while soft rain seeps into wounded earth
through piled waste, and taints itself.
Below the scars and wounds, and waste,
still waters in a forgotten river
watch the lazy sky.
© Cameron Hindrum
Except for the ghosts of houses, an abandoned town
has no memory.
The footprints of man and building dissolve
into gathering ground.
An abandoned river with banks of rust
carries poison-weighted water
away from the rain off the distant bluff.
Rain is merciful, gentle here, no weeping
for open scars or lost fortunes.
The pillagers are gone, having reaped
what they could, leaving us to sow
while soft rain seeps into wounded earth
through piled waste, and taints itself.
Below the scars and wounds, and waste,
still waters in a forgotten river
watch the lazy sky.
© Cameron Hindrum
October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Joe Lake
Sonnet 44
Sometimes you’re ugly; then you’re beautiful;
Sometimes you’re young and then you’re old as time;
Sometimes I fear you; then you’re wonderful;
Sometimes the world is chaos; then it’s rhyme.
I always love you even when I hate;
I always hate myself when I’m in love;
I always stop to ponder our fate;
I always wonder if I love enough.
I never thought to fall in love with you;
I never hoped for such a blissful life;
I’d never know the way, or what to do;
But always wanted you to be my wife.
Why do you now refrain from kissing me,
A lover down to earth and on his knee?
© Joe Lake
Sometimes you’re ugly; then you’re beautiful;
Sometimes you’re young and then you’re old as time;
Sometimes I fear you; then you’re wonderful;
Sometimes the world is chaos; then it’s rhyme.
I always love you even when I hate;
I always hate myself when I’m in love;
I always stop to ponder our fate;
I always wonder if I love enough.
I never thought to fall in love with you;
I never hoped for such a blissful life;
I’d never know the way, or what to do;
But always wanted you to be my wife.
Why do you now refrain from kissing me,
A lover down to earth and on his knee?
© Joe Lake
October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Joe Lake
The arts are not cumulative. Just when we feel to have produced the perfect poem or painting or installation, whoosh, the arts head off in a different direction.
Here are some traditional guidelines to criticism: Be interesting; make a point, be moral; expand the mind; no prejudice or lampoons; be serious and sincere; help the reader to change for the better; write simply; don’t be obscure; make it pleasent reading; have new ideas; help people to think; help the reader to make the right choices in their lives.
Congratulations to Mary Kille and Vi Woodhouse for jointly winning first prize, and the money, in the Burnie Poetry Slam; Peter Stratford came second and Loretta Gaul third. They go on now to better things and maybe to Sydney at the Opera House where the prize is huge.
Don’t forget Burnie Shines, Europa Poets’ Gold Pot which is a glass goblet filled with the gold coins of participants. It is to be held on Friday, October 30, at 5.30 pm at the Burnie Library. Vi has organised the musical entertainment and there will be a little supper.
My tulips have turned out huge; their colours are yellow, red and mauve. The vegetable seeds in their toilet roll centres in potting soil inside the icecream container have dared to show their little green sprouts tentatively and eventually will be planted into the garden. I’ll have to cut the grass again because it won’t stop growing.
We had a blogger, blogspot site that showed the month’s poems. Now I can’t find it. I’ll have to ask my four-year-old nephew. He’ll fix it. It’s hard in old age to do what the young ones do with their Facebook and blogs and websites, and what-not so easily.
At the library, when Elaine Harris broadcast on Harry Potter, a little boy came along and recited the whole first chapter of the latest book. I won’t tell you how much I could remember.
Here are some traditional guidelines to criticism: Be interesting; make a point, be moral; expand the mind; no prejudice or lampoons; be serious and sincere; help the reader to change for the better; write simply; don’t be obscure; make it pleasent reading; have new ideas; help people to think; help the reader to make the right choices in their lives.
Congratulations to Mary Kille and Vi Woodhouse for jointly winning first prize, and the money, in the Burnie Poetry Slam; Peter Stratford came second and Loretta Gaul third. They go on now to better things and maybe to Sydney at the Opera House where the prize is huge.
Don’t forget Burnie Shines, Europa Poets’ Gold Pot which is a glass goblet filled with the gold coins of participants. It is to be held on Friday, October 30, at 5.30 pm at the Burnie Library. Vi has organised the musical entertainment and there will be a little supper.
My tulips have turned out huge; their colours are yellow, red and mauve. The vegetable seeds in their toilet roll centres in potting soil inside the icecream container have dared to show their little green sprouts tentatively and eventually will be planted into the garden. I’ll have to cut the grass again because it won’t stop growing.
We had a blogger, blogspot site that showed the month’s poems. Now I can’t find it. I’ll have to ask my four-year-old nephew. He’ll fix it. It’s hard in old age to do what the young ones do with their Facebook and blogs and websites, and what-not so easily.
At the library, when Elaine Harris broadcast on Harry Potter, a little boy came along and recited the whole first chapter of the latest book. I won’t tell you how much I could remember.
October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Loretta Gaul
Under A Streetlight
Under a streetlight
a man croons.
His eyes older
than his body
will ever be.
He sways as he sings
with the intensity
of his memories
’til the light becomes
an inferno.
He flames and flares
brightly into Hell’s
uselessness.
We made love
just one time,
and as I lean
back into that memory,
I inhale his ashes
deeply into every pore.
© Loretta Gaul
Under a streetlight
a man croons.
His eyes older
than his body
will ever be.
He sways as he sings
with the intensity
of his memories
’til the light becomes
an inferno.
He flames and flares
brightly into Hell’s
uselessness.
We made love
just one time,
and as I lean
back into that memory,
I inhale his ashes
deeply into every pore.
© Loretta Gaul
October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Michael Garrad
We stare at death the moment we are born. So, tell us something we don’t know, you might be thinking.
Even as I write this, I am older. As you read this, you are older.
Every word, every character, every keyboard stroke, ages me. I am older now than when I started writing this editorial and the same for you.
Micro-seconds we cannot buy back, no matter how very much we might yearn for things to be different.
Age is the enemy.
Young and beautiful now, with dreams stretching into infinity - only what we have is finite. Childhood becomes teens, 20s becomes 30s and 40s, middle-age becomes old-age. No escape. We are in life’s trap.
We think we can defy the odds and that nothing will ever change - we will stay as we are but now, all of us, you and me, are older.
Are we wiser? Well, that’s another matter.
These are keystrokes I will never make again, for the words have been typed and I have aged, as you have. The second hand keeps moving on the clock-face and even if we wind it back, we cannot halt time’s movement.
Think about this. But hurry, you are getting older and death is waiting patiently.
Ungiving
Suckling from the one
who cannot give,
For this one has always been barren,
And does not give life,
There is no nurture in warmth,
Just a lure to the mother
who is never there, long gone
if she ever lived,
The suckle without satisfaction,
Desire and need in arid succour,
Flesh that does not yield,
As with fruit withering on vine,
We know it lies there,
Alluring, patient, ungiving.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
Even as I write this, I am older. As you read this, you are older.
Every word, every character, every keyboard stroke, ages me. I am older now than when I started writing this editorial and the same for you.
Micro-seconds we cannot buy back, no matter how very much we might yearn for things to be different.
Age is the enemy.
Young and beautiful now, with dreams stretching into infinity - only what we have is finite. Childhood becomes teens, 20s becomes 30s and 40s, middle-age becomes old-age. No escape. We are in life’s trap.
We think we can defy the odds and that nothing will ever change - we will stay as we are but now, all of us, you and me, are older.
Are we wiser? Well, that’s another matter.
These are keystrokes I will never make again, for the words have been typed and I have aged, as you have. The second hand keeps moving on the clock-face and even if we wind it back, we cannot halt time’s movement.
Think about this. But hurry, you are getting older and death is waiting patiently.
Ungiving
Suckling from the one
who cannot give,
For this one has always been barren,
And does not give life,
There is no nurture in warmth,
Just a lure to the mother
who is never there, long gone
if she ever lived,
The suckle without satisfaction,
Desire and need in arid succour,
Flesh that does not yield,
As with fruit withering on vine,
We know it lies there,
Alluring, patient, ungiving.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
October 2009 Gazette No. 66
Natural Forces
Natural forces are at work today,
Trees moan, arched in battle with autumn’s moods,
Leaves whirl in motley amber cartwheels,
Seas heave in defiance of summer’s death,
But all that concerns me is my long unruly hair -
Streamers in the wind.
© June Maureen Hitchcock May 2009
Natural forces are at work today,
Trees moan, arched in battle with autumn’s moods,
Leaves whirl in motley amber cartwheels,
Seas heave in defiance of summer’s death,
But all that concerns me is my long unruly hair -
Streamers in the wind.
© June Maureen Hitchcock May 2009
October 2009 Gazette No. 66
Invulnerable
You may think with my gentle smile
and appeasing way that I am invulnerable.
A steel girdle created in my infant year
from objurgation
from the cold hands of a nurturer
has camouflaged my true self.
Outwardly I may seem pliable,
Willing to be subjugated,
But inward I simmer with resentment
of you and others of your kind.
But then, again, who are the real vulnerable ones
For vulnerability has no class boundaries?
How often those who appear
invulnerable become religious zealots or socialists
To seek revenge and uplift their kind.
© Judy Brumby-Lake
You may think with my gentle smile
and appeasing way that I am invulnerable.
A steel girdle created in my infant year
from objurgation
from the cold hands of a nurturer
has camouflaged my true self.
Outwardly I may seem pliable,
Willing to be subjugated,
But inward I simmer with resentment
of you and others of your kind.
But then, again, who are the real vulnerable ones
For vulnerability has no class boundaries?
How often those who appear
invulnerable become religious zealots or socialists
To seek revenge and uplift their kind.
© Judy Brumby-Lake
October 2009 Gazette
Sonnet 79
When we are sleeping in our beds at night
We drift down different rivers through a park
Where peaceful creatures play in our sight
And rainbow colours glitter, dance and spark.
We float and spin in boats of soft design
Entangled as a single entity
Where we can melt within the poem’s rhyme
To set the spirit, mind and body free.
But then cold fear is gloating in the dark
And threatens when we open our eyes;
The wrench of hate may tighten our heart,
As flies the whale from too much sun and dies.
If you’d let go then surely I would drown
Away from life where I have played the clown.
Joe Lake
When we are sleeping in our beds at night
We drift down different rivers through a park
Where peaceful creatures play in our sight
And rainbow colours glitter, dance and spark.
We float and spin in boats of soft design
Entangled as a single entity
Where we can melt within the poem’s rhyme
To set the spirit, mind and body free.
But then cold fear is gloating in the dark
And threatens when we open our eyes;
The wrench of hate may tighten our heart,
As flies the whale from too much sun and dies.
If you’d let go then surely I would drown
Away from life where I have played the clown.
Joe Lake
October 2009 Gazette
At 3 am
Shapeless silver-shod moonlight splashes
the polished floorboards where I like to stand
with you
at 3 am
while your breathing follows an arc
back to sleep
in my arms
While I wait
for an arrival of steady rhythm:
rise and fall, rise and fall
and the soft weight of sleep
to hold your weight against me.
The curtain is half-open against the quiet world
where everyone is asleep in their own silence,
Except you
and me,
But I can wait,
I’ve got all night
And nowhere else to be.
© Cameron Hindrum
Cameron is the coordinator for the national Poetry Slam.
Shapeless silver-shod moonlight splashes
the polished floorboards where I like to stand
with you
at 3 am
while your breathing follows an arc
back to sleep
in my arms
While I wait
for an arrival of steady rhythm:
rise and fall, rise and fall
and the soft weight of sleep
to hold your weight against me.
The curtain is half-open against the quiet world
where everyone is asleep in their own silence,
Except you
and me,
But I can wait,
I’ve got all night
And nowhere else to be.
© Cameron Hindrum
Cameron is the coordinator for the national Poetry Slam.
October 2009 Gazette
Feature Poet
A Whistling Kite
Soaring - swooping - tumbling flight
Airborne grace - a joyous sight.
Earthbound me, wishing that I might,
Just for a moment - be a kite.
© Peter Stratford
Dementia
Decades spent together
As life’s great tune we played
The richness of love’s memories
Into our mind’s book laid.
But, slowly, as one ages,
It seems some evil grip
Reached in amongst the pages,
And from it volumes ripped.
Then a thought comes clearly,
"I need to walk the dog."
"Our dog’s been gone for years now."
This voice sounds through a fog.
The face looks vague, familiar.
Her head just slowly nods.
Beyond my comprehension
Is why she sits and sobs.
© Peter Stratford
A Whistling Kite
Soaring - swooping - tumbling flight
Airborne grace - a joyous sight.
Earthbound me, wishing that I might,
Just for a moment - be a kite.
© Peter Stratford
Dementia
Decades spent together
As life’s great tune we played
The richness of love’s memories
Into our mind’s book laid.
But, slowly, as one ages,
It seems some evil grip
Reached in amongst the pages,
And from it volumes ripped.
Then a thought comes clearly,
"I need to walk the dog."
"Our dog’s been gone for years now."
This voice sounds through a fog.
The face looks vague, familiar.
Her head just slowly nods.
Beyond my comprehension
Is why she sits and sobs.
© Peter Stratford
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